You're Lying!
by Entwife Incognito
Summary: A revision tag to the ending scene of 6x19 'Brown Eyed Girls.' Jane and Lisbon call each other on their lies. They meet after her date with Pike for an important talk and some unexpected bonding. A milder 'M' than most of mine. One-shot. AU. OOC? IDEK. Warning! Adult sexual situations. If you don't like that stuff, don't read this. Disclaimer: I own nothing about The Mentalist.


Pike was on his cell phone outside the double doors in the hospital hallway.

Jane and Lisbon had been telling blatant lies to one another, masking their true feelings very inadequately. Lisbon had had enough. Did he think she was too stupid to see that he was very upset, even hurt?

"Why are you lying, Jane? I can tell when you're lying."

"You're lying! You think I don't see it?"

Lisbon turned her head and raked her lips with her tongue, annoyed. "Yeah, well, I called it first!"

"This is where you want to get into it? In a hospital waiting room? With P—with your boyfriend just outside the doors?"

"Oh. 'My boyfriend.' That's what this is about."

Face red and starting to sweat, Jane blew slow breath through his lips, venting the anger that had kicked on like a furnace. Lisbon was deliberately misconstruing what was between them, making it a petty jealousy fight.

Forcibly tamping down his urge to shout, to howl, the lower register reduced his voice to a rumbling growl. "How dare you trivialize my feelings that way! Make me into an insignificant, jealous pest! I haven't done that to you, and you know it."

His voice grew cracked and gravelly. "After all these years . . . after all we've been through? This is what you have to say to me? I'm jealous? Lisbon, what's happened to you? Your cruelty seems to have no bounds . . . with me." Voice rising, he deliberately lowered it again. "You've taken up with someone . . . some—not me. You make it look serious. And I'm not to say a word. What can I do but lie?" He dropped his head. "And try to be happy for you. You, who deserve happiness more than anyone."

Lisbon was too angry to be touched by guilt. "You? You want me to be happy? Why have you never tried to make me happy the way it counts, Jane? Why are you content for me to be alone? I can't be alone anymore!"

Jane did feel guilt. For pampering his fear to move on. He had been floating on quicksand with her for years. He looked at Lisbon now, radiating pain and disappointment. He hung his head again.

He'd done everything to be reunited with Lisbon. And then promptly sat on his thumbs grinning at her. He should have kissed her in those first moments when she stood close to him, her eyes wide and dark, biting her bottom lip in desire for him. He should have kissed her on that beach at sunset, even if it had made him cry in her arms. He should have kissed her that day she gave him her gun. He knew it would be the last time. She longed for a kiss. He should have kissed her, damn it! So many times. Until she'd had her fill.

Instead he'd given in to comfortable inertia and relied on patient Lisbon to accept the status quo and wait for him to be 'ready' to move on. Damn his self-indulgence. It was hurting him. But worse, it had hurt the person he loved more than anyone in the world and confused everything between them. If he really wanted to sacrifice something for her, how about his interminable wallow in self pity?

Pike was walking through the doors.

"I have to go now, Jane. But we will finish this talk. Tonight! You understand me?"

His head snapped up to look at her, his lips parted in surprise. "Yes! Yes, of course Lisbon. When and where?"

"It will be after midnight. At my house. I'll text you." She watched Jane's eyes cloud with sadness. Touching his arm lightly, she gave him a tentative smile. "Don't worry. I won't be coming from his bed. Okay?"

Jane could barely manage a little nod, breathing a sigh of relief. She did see him. She did know him. She understood his jealousy and hurt, and she wasn't angry at him for it. "Okay. I'll be there. I want to talk, Lisbon. I want to tell you everything."

Pike was coming up behind her, but she managed to slide her comforting fingers along his jaw before she turned to go.

Jane, his feelings raw and discharging an electric sizzle under his skin, wanted to go after her, set things aright, now! He steeled himself yet again to act against impulses that seemed destructive in the charged atmosphere between Lisbon and him. Everything in him wanted to break down and cry, but he hung on for midnight. When he got home, he took off his ring, tied it in a clean handkerchief and tucked it in a drawer.

Her text arrived at 12:15, saying she would swing by and pick him up so that he wouldn't have to take the Airstream. They both knew she didn't want it as a conversation piece at her curb tonight.

Lisbon began gently as they pulled away from Jane's RV. "I've been hurting, Jane, hurting so bad and for so long."

"I—I know. I—it's my fault, Lisbon. All my fault."

"I don't want to hurt anymore. You understand?"

"Of course. I don't want you to. And I don't want to hurt anymore either."

"You're hurting?" She was sure he had been, but she wanted him to tell her openly.

He turned to her sharply as she faced the road. "Yes! Horribly."

"Oh."

"It's true. I have been lying to you. About how I feel."

"Okay, Jane. We've both been hurting. Maybe we stop tonight."

Jane felt very doubtful the hurt would end after their talk. It was unlikely to change anything about the reality of her relationship with Pike and her separation from him. He nodded, made a soft indistinct sound and looked out the side window. He doubted he could stop lying about his feelings if he had to continue to make Lisbon feel comfortable about being with Pike.

Content with the silence, Lisbon drove quietly to her house and let them in. She realized with a bit of a pang that Jane had never been here before. She turned to look at his face and could tell that he was trying to hide the pain of it from her. She shook her head. Just how deep did their pain and their lies go?

"Have a seat. I'm going to make us some tea."

"Thank you." He looked around the living room as he waited. It was so different from her place in Sacramento. This was cozy, tasteful, inviting. She had taken the time to make a home here. It was so lovely to be in this place that she had created for her own pleasure and comfort. "It's wonderful—the home you've made here, Lisbon."

"Thank you. I'm really enjoying it."

"It must be hard to think about leaving it. Leaving your home again."

"Yes. Very hard. I haven't decided if I will. Yet." Lisbon brought their tea, setting his on the coffee table near the couch, hers on the adjacent side in front of the armchair, and sat down.

Jane followed her lead. "I'm afraid that you're leaving because of me."

"Not true, Jane. It's a decision for me to make. About my life. Job. Marcus. And . . . . other things."

"But if I had been truthful with you all along . . . "

"What do you mean? What about? What could change the decisions I'm facing now?"

"About my feelings, Lisbon. How I feel . . . about you." If their relationship was going to be destroyed anyway, at least it could go down in some truth. And he owed it to her. "If I'd been truthful with you all along, I . . . I would hope you'd be facing a different set of decisions. Ones that wouldn't involve changing your job. Or your home. Unless it was your idea."

Lisbon sipped her tea and set it down. "You're talking in riddles now. Make yourself plain. I don't want to guess at your meanings. I just can't do it anymore."

Jane felt too undeserving to look at her, to be saying such things to her. But it was what was inside him. He had to tell her and she deserved to know, so he made himself brave enough to let her see his eyes as he spoke. "I'm in love with you, Teresa."

She blushed as her eyes went round and then she spoke softly. "Well, that's definitely plain." She suddenly felt drained, tension she didn't know was there flowing away. Her eyelids drooped and she fell back against her chair with a sigh.

Jane continued speaking, his voice even softer. "I can't remember a time when I didn't love you. But not like this. I only recently knew how deep it goes, what kind of love it really is. I took my time to fully know it, taking advantage of your patience." He looked at her intently. "It goes on forever. The bottom is so far down it scares me sometimes."

"It is scary, isn't it?" Lisbon's eyes were closed now. "Try having those feelings for such a long time that you give up hope." Tears began to flow from under her eyelids, but she didn't open them. Everything in her face tightened as she forced herself not to sob and her arms wrapped her middle.

Jane could see Lisbon was tired but he couldn't leave her like this no matter how much she needed to sleep. "I didn't want to hurt you. I was so stuck in my own inertia that if we stayed the same as always, I could manage to be okay. But we didn't. I didn't know how it was with you—"

"Stop! Just stop!" She sat upright and stared him down through her tears. "You know me inside out. You've always been able to read me. You saw everything! Don't lie! You saw how it was with me, how helpless I was against my feeling for you. You knew!"

"Teresa." He wanted to say 'my love.' "I know how you once felt. How strong we were until I killed Red John and . . . went away for, for so long. But when I came back you made sure to let me know things were different, that you didn't feel the same way. And that I should back away. I wanted to be near you. I didn't want you to go away. So . . . I backed off. I was afraid if I said or did . . . _anything_ . . . you'd cut me completely loose. If that happened, I would die. So, I backed off. Completely, I guess. Except for work, which became hard enough."

"You backed up all right . . . all the way to _fucking Ohio!_"

In ordinary circumstances, he would have smiled at her little joke and cautioned her language. But it was a serious statement. "Yes. And what good did it do me? You found someone else. I assumed that's what you wanted. I didn't want to ruin it for you."

"I thought you didn't love me!" Now Lisbon sobbed unreservedly. "If you didn't love me . . . after what we'd been to each other, what we'd been through together . . . then who _could_ possibly love me? Maybe I wasn't loveable." She swallowed hard, sniffed and swiped under her nose as the blood drained from her face.

"I have to make something work, Jane. If I couldn't make things work with you, I had to try with someone else. Otherwise I have to believe I'm hopeless, that I can never have a happy, fulfilling relationship with anyone. I'm frightened of that. I don't know if you can understand how frightened, what it means to me. When Marcus responded so hard to my flirting . . . I just kept going with it to see where it would lead . . . to see if _he_ could love me."

"And he could."

"I don't know. He's moving so fast. And he doesn't know the first thing about me. We're still in the being nice and tolerating the oversteps stage. It's too soon to leave everything and, and every . . . one and traipse across the country to be with him. Jesus, he's never even asked me about you! And I don't even know the circumstances of his divorce!"

"That seems pretty important."

"Damn straight, it's important, Jane! But we're too busy smiley-facing each other—pardon me, I shouldn't have said 'smiley face'—because, because that's the stage we're still in!"

"Lisbon. I killed Red John with my bare hands. I washed off the smiley face he painted on you, myself. I don't mind the words. And from what you just said about the state of things and Pike's divorce, I'd say you seem to understand and analyze relationships pretty well."

"You washed his mark off my face yourself? Why didn't you tell me that before?"

"I don't know. Things were so busy then. I was just relieved you were okay. I guess it just faded into the background."

"You should have told me. I would have liked it."

"Do you like it now?"

"Yes. And I want you to tell me every detail about that night. When you lost me—I know I was foolish—and when you found me. And staying with me at the hospital. And petting me awake. I loved that part."

"I will. I'll tell you everything. Everything about anything you want to know."

Jane could see Lisbon fidget in her chair, actually tensing as if to get out of it several times, then fighting her instincts to run to him. He would be the brave one now. He had to be, for Teresa. He opened his arms to her and she launched herself from the chair and into his embrace, sobbing loudly at his neck. It didn't matter because he was probably drowning her out with his own choking cries. She was in his arms! She loved him.

"I love you with all my heart."

"I love you, too, Patrick," she sobbed into his ear.

The thrill of her voice went through his entire body and he gasped as he found her lips and kissed them. She started to giggle as they both tried to sniff and snuffle, sob and stop sobbing, through the kiss.

He pulled from the kiss, sniffed loudly and wiped his damp nose with a pass of his hand, smiling. "My charm and élan—it's not working." Then, he thumbed tears away from her cheeks and wiped under her nose. But their tears kept falling.

Lisbon motioned to an end table and Jane got up for the tissue box. Handing it to her, he sat down, their bodies touching as she doled out wads of tissue to each of them. Afterwards, they sat in a mildly awkward silence for a minute.

"I want to kiss you again."

Lisbon nodded her head and pulled him to her for a long, passionate kiss.

Jane stopped after awhile, sliding his fingers under her silky hair and caressing her cheek as he looked into her wild, dilated eyes, the green barely visible. "I should go."

"No! We just found one another."

"I think we should wait until you've decided about Pike and D.C."

"I have decided. Tonight. Now that I know you love me and want me as a woman, the decision makes itself."

"And that is . . . ?"

"Stay here to be with you. What I've always wanted, but thought I couldn't have." She put her hand on his waist and rubbed there, looking expectantly into his stormy eyes.

"Just because of our talk?"

"Yes. But even before because I saw the hurt in your eyes when I told you about D.C. at the hospital. I knew you were lying. I knew you loved me. But we had to stop lying and tell each other- right away!"

"What about Pike?"

Setting her lips, Lisbon blushed and wrinkled her brow. "I do feel bad for him. But he already knows I'm unsure. I'll tell him the truth. I decided against it. And that I'm breaking it off because I don't want a long-distance relationship. It's the truth."

He grinned. "You want a near relationship. With me?"

Lisbon looked into his bright eyes and smiling face. "Yes. I have for a long time. I won't pass it up now. Will you?"

"Never."

"Then, we're in agreement."

He squinted, anticipating hurting her again so quickly. "Then we need to wait until you tell him."

"Yes. I know." She laid a hand on his cheek and thumbed the bone as he leaned into her palm and closed his eyes. "But I want to give us something of what we both desire. That says we love each other as man and woman. It's such an important step for us. We've waited long enough. A token between us. Something I give to _you_- my, my masculine half." She blushed furiously.

"Lisbon! What a poetic, romantic side you have. Don't ever say you don't understand relationships. I can't wait to receive your token . . . and I give this to you." He held up his unadorned left hand.

"Your ring."

"I took it off when I went home this evening. That will be my token to you."

She smiled softly and looked at him with a touch of sadness. She knew how much his ring had meant. "Yes, it's a wonderful token, Patrick. You couldn't have thought of anything more meaningful for tonight. It makes me feel free, knowing you are." She placed a hand on his cheek and dropped a light kiss on his mouth.

Letting her hand drift from his cheek, Lisbon rested it on the swell of his pants. Jane huffed and threw his head back as a spear of desire thrust from his groin to his chest. She continued to pet him, feeling him grow hard under her hand. "This is my token. You can't mistake it."

Knowing this side of Lisbon would be a gift he could never have imagined. This brilliant, gentle woman had chosen wisely, perfectly, cherishing his masculine nature, calling it and bonding it to her. He answered by placing his hand gently on the vee of her pants, petting sofly as she smiled at him. Then, she opened his trousers and, using his underwear, moved him to stand upright. "Teresa . . . you make me want you. I can't hold out very long."

"Then let me do this. Let me touch you. I've dreamed about it, fantasized for years. I want to feel you in my hand. I want you to be helpless against my touch. I know you've dreamed of this, too."

Jane rested his forehead against hers and nodded. "All the time. For years. On my CBI couch." He smiled and kissed the top of her head. "Or yours. In your office."

"And here we are . . . on my couch." She pushed his trousers down a little and then slipped her hand into his underwear.

When she put her small hand around him, adjusting her fingers to the hold she wanted, Jane shouted a huff, arching his back and jutting his hips forward. "Teresa!" he managed as he started to pant.

She felt him. He could sense it from her touch, light pressures, strokings, smoothings. Her fingers, her palm, the back of her hand. Even the delicate skin on the inside of her wrist. As she slipped her fingers carefully lower to caress his softer flesh, he felt his mind let go and completely yield to her. She rocked her clothed sex hypnotically against the fingers he still held against her.

When he started grunting, she wrapped her hand tighter and started pumping him like she knew he would need. As he came, he leaned over and pulled her into an ecstatic kiss, murmuring 'I love you' on her lips and eventually into her open mouth. When he caught his breath, his attention went to Lisbon.

Her breathing was still heavy from their kiss, the pleasure of handling him, the excitement of bringing him off and the enticing things he still did with his fingers on the covered flesh between her legs.

He zipped a fingernail up and down the crotch seam. Then he thumped her covered clit, launching his middle finger onto it over and over with a flick of his thumb. She called out and leaned back, opening her legs more to watch what he did until she came with a surprised groan and gripped his forearm with a wet hand as the orgasm took control of her. He kissed her to fill his mouth with the breath of her release and continued to softly pet her until she had calmed.

They had another cup of tea, talking amiably of small things, kissing occasionally and exchanging endearments. Jane stood to go. It wasn't the right time yet for him to stay the night and he didn't want to put Lisbon in the awkward position of having to make excuses. As they stood at the doorway, he looked towards her bedroom and then quickly away.

"No," she said, catching his chin and turning it gently with her fingers. "Never here. Only at his place a few times."

Looking in her eyes, he nodded and kissed her lightly. "I guess all this truth-telling is going to be a little awkward at times."

"Yes. But you wanted to know, right?"

"Yes. Thanks. I'm glad."

"I'll break it off with Marcus right away." She grabbed her keys to take him home. When she let him out at his door, she said, "Come around on the weekend. We'll have a few more awkward talks. They seem to be good for us."

"I think you might be right." He kissed her and went to his door, waving before he went in.

Joy filled him and spread across his face as the door clicked behind him. What had happened tonight was incredible. They would be together and, as difficult as it had been all this time, it would be wonderful now. He was sure of it!

Grabbing a piece of paper from a nearby pad, he scrawled, "_Condoms!" _underlined the word three times and stuffed the reminder into his pants pocket. He would smoke her!


End file.
